FRANZ VON STUCK
Die Sinnlichkeit.
Etching, 1889. 215x172 mm; 8½x6 inches, full margins. Signed in pencil, lower right. A very good, dark impression. Von Stuck (1863–1928) was educated in Munich at the Kunstgewerbeschule and the Akademie der Bildenden Künste, training in both fine and applied arts. He stepped away from his academic training, using a traditional style but portraying haunting, symbolic scenes relating to psychology, sexuality and spirituality. The female figure bound by a snake is a repeated motif, present in paintings like The Sin, 1893, now at the Neue Pinakothek, Munich, Inferno, 1908, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and an oil version of the current lot, Die Sinnlichkeit, or The Sensuality sold Christie’s, London, 2010. Scholars have debated the meaning behind the snake, which is cited as a reference to the temptation of Eve, evil’s hold over mankind, or the concept of the femme fatale.